


Red and the wolf

by natigail



Series: Phanfic Bingo 2019 [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Blood, Darkness, Gen, Horror, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Murderers, Panic, Phandom Fic Fests: Bingo, Psychic Abilities, Read it and make your own theories based on the various hints, Red Riding Hood Elements, Supernatural Elements, Walks In The Woods, Werewolves, perhaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 14:30:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20761898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natigail/pseuds/natigail
Summary: Phil was used to walking through the forest after having visited his grandmother’s cottage. He never felt particular unsafe... until his possible-physic nana - at least if you asked her - was warning him that someone would take his heart and he might not make the trip alive. Phil wasn’t sure if her words caused the paranoia or if someone dangerous were truly lurking in the bushes.Phanfic Bingo - Horror: Content that seeks to elicit fear for entertainment purposes





	Red and the wolf

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Blood, mentions of murder, panic-induced running, creepy visions, evil intentions (Not for the faint of heart, I would say but nothing is particularly graphic).

Phil walked through the forest to visit his grandmother at least once a week. It had started when he was a child and he had gone accompanied with his parents. It had been fun at first to hear nana’s stories but it had eventually turned into a bit of a chore. Through his teenage years, he had tried not to go whenever he could find an excuse. But then she fell ill and became bedbound when he had just entered his twenties and in a fit of guilt, he had resumed his weekly visits without fail.

Now he found himself looking forward to them. He liked to talk to his nana, who had lived a long life and she was a wise woman once you got used to how long it took her to get to the point of her stories. She jumped around a lot, easily distracted and Phil ended up being told two or more stories before she got to the end of the one that she had begun when he arrived. As a child, he had not been able to keep focus but now he found himself relating to his grandmother quite a lot. Phil’s own mind tended to jump around from topic to topic seemingly with no obvious connection. He felt like he found kinship in his grandmother.

There was another thing though. The main thing that had kept him ducking out of visits as a teenager. Nana fully and wholeheartedly believed that she was psychic. Child Phil had been in awe of this fact, until he had told someone at school and he had been endlessly teased about it for the years following. He had stopped believing since then, even if his nana was good at predicting things that would happen. It was always vague enough that Phil couldn’t definitely attribute it to physic powers, no matter how much he wanted to. It seemed more like freaky coincidences.

It was a Thursday afternoon and Phil had stayed later than usual. It was the tailend of autumn and the sun had long gone down outside. Nana’s old cottage was located on the outskirts of the forest that Phil would have to walk across to get to a bus stop that could take him back to the city centre and his little flat. He would be able to catch a bus just outside of the forest, as soon as he left with enough time to make the last one of the night.

Phil was in the kitchen putting the plates from dinner away when his grandmother suddenly gasped. Phil nearly dropped the plate he was rinsing in his hands and rushed back out to see what had happened. His heart was in his chest already and he worried that his grandmother had fallen down or felt a pain in her chest.

His worries were not satiated when he found her clutching her chest and looking terrified as her face visibly paled. Phil was already trying to think of how quickly an ambulance could get out here and he cursed Nana for refusing to leave this place like his mother had suggested for the last year. Phil rushed to her side and kneeled down by her side.

“Nana? Is it your heart? Do I need to call an ambulance?” Phil asked frantically, already pulling his phone out of his pocket and he hoped this was one of the times when the signal would actually behave.

“Not my heart, child,” she said and her other hand reached out to find Phil’s. For an old lady, her grip was almost bruising and Phil jumped a little at the contact. “Yours.”

“My heart? I feel fine,” Phil said frantically. “You look like you’re about to keel over.”

“My body is fine,” nana insisted. “It’s my mind that’s hurting.”

“What does that even mean?” Phil asked, both scared and frustrated.

“Phil, you cannot leave the cottage today. You must stay until morning.”

The request took Phil by surprise. He never stayed over. The obvious reason was that other than nana’s own bed, she had the two-person sofa that Phil would never be able to lie down on with his lanky limbs. He also usually had things he needed to do the following day that required him to be closer to the city, like work or class.

“But I have work in the morning and the earliest bus leaves too late for me to make it in time,” Phil tried to reason calmly to his grandmother who still looked very fragile.

“They will believe you if you call in sick,” she said, as if that was a perfectly viable option.

Phil frowned and tried to pull back but she still held onto his hand with a might he couldn’t quite comprehend. A crawling sensation seemed to run across his skin.

“They might but I would be lying and I don’t do that, nana. Why are you acting so strange?” Phil asked but the second the question left his lips; he knew the reason.

Nana only confirmed it by how she looked down at their hands. She thought that she’d gotten a psychic vision. By the sounds of it, she didn’t like what would happen to Phil if he left the cottage.

Phil fought back an eyeroll. He’d walked through the forest so many times, caught a late bus without an issue and even walked down the dark allies leading to his flat without ever encountering trouble. His tall stature often made people mistake him for someone intimidating.

“I will be fine. I’ve done the walk a hundred times,” Phil said to reassure her and gave her hand a squeeze.

It was not the first time she had kicked up a fuss that he was leaving but usually she just told him to watch his step – he ignored how he’d fallen and twisted his ankle on that day – or she told him not to take the backseat on the bus – where he conveniently forgot how he found himself trapped in conversation with a drunk person. She never tried to get him to stay over though.

“Not tonight, my dear Phil. You can’t do the walk tonight,” she said adamantly.

“But I have to,” Phil said and quickly glanced at his watch. The last bus left in just over half an hour and it would take nearly twenty minutes to trek through the stretch of forest. He needed to get out of here or he would be stranded and forced to call for a taxi at the bus stop instead, which his wallet would not appreciate. 

“This is not just a twisted ankle or a drunk person’s rambling, Phil,” nana said sternly and Phil blinked a couple of times. He had never told her those instances. He had worried that it would just fuel her delusion. They had been coincidences. They had to be coincidences.

Phil’s mother liked to talk about the physic line that ran through the family but she always did so with a glint in her eye. No one actually believed it. Maybe some of the family members had been more intuitive and sensitive to their surroundings than others but that was all it was.

Phil had stopped believing in physic abilities when he was a child and he had been ridiculed. He told himself that he still didn’t believe, even if he couldn’t deny the slight chill he felt at his grandmother’s accuracy. He convinced himself that his mother had probably tattled on him during their phone calls. It was the most logical assumption.

“I’m sure I will be fine,” Phil said with a wave of his hand that he hoped came off as nonchalant. He had too vivid an imagination and he did not need his grandmother to fill his head with scary images before he needed to trot through a dark forest.

“He might take your _heart_,” nana hissed and Phil could swear that it made the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end.

She spoke with complete sincerity and Phil didn’t for a moment doubt that she believed what she said to be true.

But it was still so very vague. What did it even mean that she thought someone would take his heart? Would he fall in love and metaphorically hand over his heart? Would someone physically rip his heart from his chest? He shuddered.

He hoped his grandmother had not seen it. He finally got on his feet and pried her hand away from where it had likely pressed bruises into his skin with the amount of force she had exerted.

“I will just be sure to protect my heart,” he said with a smile and winked, as he hoped to lighten the mood.

“You won’t be able to,” she said grimly. “Phil, I know you do not believe but can you not trust your old grandmother?”

The guilt trip. Phil should have expected that.

“I do trust you, nana, but I have work early in the morning and I have to leave now or I’ll miss the bus. I promise to be careful, okay? If it makes you feel any better, I’ll call you once I get on the bus and again when I get home. Deal?”

“It’s the only the forest you have to worry about,” she said darkly.

“Then I’ll only call you as I board the bus, yeah?” Phil asked and turned away to grab his hoodie and pull it over his head. It had been a quite hot afternoon and he’d foregone the jacket and instead added a couple of layers. His old Leeds Student Radio hoodie was well-worn and fraying slightly at the hem but it had always been one of Phil’s favourites. The vibrant red had faded a little but Phil actually liked this colour a bit more. It had gone slightly darker after a couple of washes.

“Phil,” nana called.

“Nana,” Phil shot right back. “I have to go. You know that. I’ll be back again next week, okay?”

Nana didn’t reply she just looked at him with an oddly sad expression. Phil’s hand was on the handle when she finally spoke up.

“If you live that long.”

Phil froze against his wishes and he wanted to shout at his grandmother for the first time in years. She was making him anxious and worried and she must have known that it was not enough to make him stay, so instead she only succeeded in putting him on edge. He already knew that he’d be jumping at shadows the whole way home, which was unfortunate because he’d need his torch on his phone to guide him through some of the denser patches and cast shadows all around him.

For a very brief moment, Phil did find himself considered taking his grandmother up on the offer to stay but it was gone as soon as it entered his mind. He could not be late for his shift tomorrow and he had class later in the day too. It would mess everything up. He had to go now and he really should head out or he’d miss the last bus.

“I’ll see you, nana,” Phil said with what he hoped was conviction and he shut the door firmly behind him before his grandmother could say anything else.

He fumbled with his phone and his headphones, angry at himself with how his hands shook as he untangled the wires. His grandmother’s words had gotten to him.

People got murdered in the middle of the woods, didn’t they? Was that what she thought that she had seen happen? Phil did not want to become a murder victim.

The first couple of minutes, his steps were tense and he didn’t dare to turn his music up too much so he would be unable to hear what was happening around him. He chastised himself. This was ridiculous. He had literally walked this path a hundred times, half of those times when it had been dark. At most he had run into someone going for a late-night run or spotted a couple of deer in the bushes. Almost all of the time, it was just him and the sounds of nature.

The slight rustling in the leaves of the trees usually brought Phil comfort but right now the sounds put him on edge and made him glance around for the sound of the source.

The way that leaves crunched under his feet usually brought him childlike glee but right now he kept wondering if the sounds underneath his feet could have been made by someone else.

The whole aroma and scent of the forest was something that Phil usually enjoyed as it was easier to breathe in than city air but right now it felt almost suffocating.

Phil stubbornly turned up his music a couple of notches as he walked into the denser part of the forest that forced him to pull out his phone to light the way. He wondered what he looked like from afar, a tall young man in a hoodie with a flashlight only illuminating a couple of steps ahead of him.

His imagination was running too wild and he tried to distract himself with humming along to the song playing instead of entertaining how someone could come sprinting out from the bushes with a knife and a maniac grin. Or how he could be walking along and fall into a pit, only to look up and see someone looming above him with bad intentions.

He was a little worried that he seemed to see the same scary smile in his imaginary attackers even as the face was blurred and shifting.

“Stupid nana,” Phil muttered under his breath and stuffed one of his hands into pouch of his pocket. The one that held the light out in front of him was staking slightly and he pulled it back to rest against his chest. He could feel his rapid heartbeat even through the layers of his clothing.

He thought he heard a crack, something similar to the snapping of a branch and he whirled around to face the noise, taking his light with him.

There was nothing there.

Just a couple of thick trees. Phil’s heart was beating faster now, but he tried to ignore it and calm himself down by realising how ridiculous this whole thing was. He was so unlikely to run into someone.

He almost never ran into someone on his walks home. It was a fairly deserted area of the otherwise vast forest and not a lot of sane people would be out here at this hour. Phil certainly didn’t feel very sane at the moment.

He ignored the noise and his heartbeat, even if it was now so loud that he could almost hear it and feel it pulse through his ears. He picked up his pace a little, wanting to get to the bus stop with enough time to spare and he tried to picture the little streetlight next to it. It was familiar and safe and he had already been walking for ten minutes. He would be there before he knew it.

He had been caught up in his head, not really paying attention, and that’s when it happened.

Clumsy Phil happened again and suddenly he found himself tumbling forward. With a phone in one hand and the other trapped in his pouch, he didn’t have any hands left to brace his fall. He collided with the brown leaves on the path and choked out a painful cry. His phone went scattering across the leaves, painfully ripping the earbuds out of Phil’s ears, falling face down and taking Phil’s precious light with it. He could see a low glow though and he was thankful that it hadn’t fallen entirely flat or he worried that he would never have found it again.

However, he didn’t like the darkness the lack of it brought.

Phil had scraped his elbow as he went down and he chuckled darkly. “I guess you got the body part wrong, nana. My heart is not located in my elbow,” he spoke to the darkness as he got up.

He was on his knees, in the process of getting up when he heard a rustling. He froze like a deer but he didn’t find himself caught in headlights. He found himself caught by the sight of two glowing eyes.

Phil had never scrambled to his feet so fast and he was legitimately worried that his heart would jump out of his chest. Maybe that was what his grandmother had meant. Glowing eyes meant wolf, right? But England didn’t have any wolves. Phil couldn’t recall if any other animals had the same light reflecting eyes as the wild canine but maybe he was wrong. It could be a big fox or something.

He tried to look over again to where he’d seen those eyes – the image already burned into his own retinas and it was only made worse by how he’d felt like he was almost at level with them in his crouched position – but he couldn’t see them anymore.

Still, Phil couldn’t make himself move. If it was a wolf, or another predator animal, it was likely afraid of humans but it might still give chase if Phil started to run. He needed his light back and he needed to make himself look intimidating, even if he felt like a bubbling mess right now.

Part of his brain was already trying to convince him that he hadn’t seen glowing eyes. It sounded much too absurd but Phil knew what he had seen. He could see those eyes every time he blinked.

What scared him the most was that they hadn’t seemed emotionless. They seemed to have been staring him down, almost hungrily, and Phil felt another chill run down his spine. He would break into cold sweats soon.

As soon as he had his breathing somewhat under control and he had glanced around to determine that there was nothing here, at least not anymore, he carefully shuffled over to where his phone had fallen and he picked it up. The digital clock met him along with his lock screen and he had wasted precious time. The bus would leave in ten minutes. It would do him no good to linger here.

He picked up the headphones cord but instead of putting them back in his ears, he put them in the pouch of his hoodie. He just wanted to get out of here and he half contemplated just sprinting the rest of the way, all notions of not doing so because of predators pushed to the back of his mind.

Another sound of something cracking, which Phil’s unhelpful brain interpreted as someone sneaking up on him, made the decision for him. Phil ran with his phone tightly clutched in his hand and the torch light swaying widely as he ran uncoordinatedly. If anyone could see him right now, he knew that he would never live it down.

He had never really been afraid of the dark growing up because it had never held any dangers to him, just mysteries. But right now, it felt like something might jump out at him from behind every tree.

If he had focused less on his feet and more on the path in front of him, he might have seen the man before he almost ran into him.

Phil shouted when he realised that there was someone here and his first instinct was to scream bloody murder but the words died in his throat as he tried to swerve to avoid decking the stranger and he almost managed to skid out himself.

He would have fallen on his ass, probably adding more bruises and scrapes to his already growing collection if it had not been for the lightening reflexes of the man in front of him. A big and steady hand locked itself around Phil’s upper arm and jolted him upwards with surprising strength.

Phil screamed then, which caused the stranger to let out a yelp and let go of Phil’s arm in the same breath.

“Fuck, dude,” the man said but Phil was not paying attention because he was backing away.

A quick glance at the stranger told Phil that he was young, probably younger than himself, and he was wearing black jeans and a black hoodie with the hood up and he looked somewhat like the grim reaper.

The guy was clearly not out for a nightly jog and Phil wanted to put more than just a couple of metres between them. Phil’s grandmother’s words were running around inside of his head, again and again.

The guy didn’t look like an axe murderer with his soft features and emo fringe but did Phil even know what someone like that would look like?

“Sorry,” Phil forced out through clenched teeth before he raised the light to get a better look at the stranger.

The boy flinched and turned his face away to spare his eyes from the harsh light, which was understandable and perfectly normal but Phil hardly processed that because he was stuck on the first couple of seconds before the stranger had looked away.

Phil could have sworn that the light was reflected back at him.

Could human eyes do that? Or was he just projecting and seeing those strange glowing eyes in the next pair of eyes that he encountered?

“You mind?” the stranger asked, waving his hand in Phil’s direction. “I don’t like being blinded.”

“Oh, right,” Phil said and he tried to remind himself how to be an actual human who adhered to social norms upon meeting someone instead of acting like they were a serial killer, which the guy was probably not. Phil had just let nana get him paranoid.

That was all.

It had to be all.

“You okay?” the guy asked and adjusted his hoodie. Phil was now pointing his light at the ground in front of their feet and it gave the stranger an even more eerie air, like they were gathered around a bonfire telling ghost stories. A manic grin would have fit right on his face.

Phil didn’t answer the question but posed one of his own. “What are you doing out here?” he asked, a little too accusatory.

The stranger lifted an eyebrow. “I could ask you the same thing. Do you normally go running in the middle of the night in jeans and a… red hoodie?”

The boy paused just before he said the colour and an amused smirk pulled slightly at his lips, like he was thinking of an inside joke that went entirely over Phil head.

“No,” Phil said defensively and crossed his arms. “I was just walking back from visiting my grandmother.”

At this, the stranger let out almost a choked sound, like he was trying to bite back laughter. Phil did not like the feeling that he was being ridiculed but it felt somewhat better than fearing he would be murdered. Maybe nana had meant that he would fall in love instead. The boy was undeniably cute, even if Phil could not think of a worse first meeting.

“Right,” the stranger said with his mouth almost strained around the syllable.

“You never told me what _you_ were doing out here,” Phil said. “It’s only fair.”

The boy shrugged and for a beat he looked uncomfortable. “I just like the forest at night. It’s peaceful. When you don’t nearly get toppled by screaming people.”

“I said I was sorry,” Phil said, even if he wasn’t sure if he’d actually done it in the confusion and his weak attempt at keeping himself in check. “Hey, what’s your name?” Phil asked, some part of him reasoned that a name would make this stranger feel less like a threat.

He conveniently ignored that most people got murdered by their loved ones over a random stranger.

“Dan,” the boy replied with another shrug of his shoulder. “Do I get yours too?”

“Phil,” Phil replied and offered out his hand against his better judgement.

“Sorry,” Dan said, hands still stuffed deeply into the pouch of his hoodie where they had been ever since he let go of Phil. “Germaphobe.”

Phil narrowed his eyes and tried to reconcile how someone could love nature walks and be a germaphobe in the same time. He was probably just being prejudiced and he decided to drop it, along with his offered hand.

“Okay, well, nice to meet you, I guess? I have to get going,” Phil said. “Bus to catch.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Dan said unprompted and it caused Phil to frown.

“Why?”

“It’s late, and dark and someone like you shouldn’t be walking around out here by yourself. It’s not safe,” Dan said and just like nana, his words were spoken with pure sincerity.

Part of Phil, the terrified part that had been at the forefront of his mind since he had left his grandmother’s cottage, intensified and he was suddenly very unsure whether or not he should walk along with Dan. However, it wasn’t like he had a lot of choice. There was only one path and he couldn’t exactly forbid Dan from walking along the same one.

Instead of showing how terrified he was, he decided to put up false bravado and pretend like his heart was threatening to give out with each rustle of the leaves.

“I walk here all the time, you know,” Phil said as he started to walk with long strides. A quick glance on his phone told him that he could still make it to the bus stop in time despite the numerous interruptions but he had to keep up a fast walking pace.

Surprisingly Dan seemed to have no issues to match Phil’s gait and he looked like he almost just strolled with long legs next to him.

“Playing a dangerous game then,” Dan said ominously and Phil was so fed up of people being so dark and grim. He couldn’t give his grandmother a piece of his mind because he respected her too much but this stranger was fair game.

“Would you stop that? I’m sure you can tell that I’m not feeling the most stable right now. What do you achieve by saying something like that other than scaring me? Huh? What good will it do?”

Phil looked over his shoulder and if he had been less angry and paid more attention, he should probably have questioned why Dan was suddenly more behind him than beside him now and how one of his hands had disappeared behind his back the moment Phil glanced back.

But Phil didn’t see any of that or the flash of surprise on Dan’s face, because he just quickly turned around not really looking but more turning to get his point across and then he was back to speed walking. Dan seemed to linger behind for a minute or so, seemingly hesitant. Then Phil heard the rushed footsteps to keep up with him and it sent chills down his spine but he told himself to ignore it. He knew that someone was walking with him and having fallen behind it was only natural to jog to keep up.

He most certainly didn’t feel anything hovering near his back, so very close.

Phil was much too focused being tired and angry at the world for making him freak out like this when the worst that happened was running into a strange young boy who liked to sass him and be ominously creepy. Phil could handle that.

When the streetlamp could be seen, Phil almost let out a cry of relief and his walk almost accelerated to a run. Dan came up to walk beside him again instead of lingering slightly behind and he kept the pace easily.

“How long until your bus?” Dan asked.

“Only a few minutes, I think. Fuck, I’m so glad I made it in time. It’s the last one,” Phil said, feeling much better now that he was out of the forest. Maybe he had taken his grandmother’s words more to heart than he’d planned. He had worried about the forest despite his attempts at pushing it away.

“That’s good,” Dan said as the two of them stepped off the gravel path and onto the pavement.

“Are you taking the bus too?” Phil asked. He figured that Dan must have to, since this wasn’t a very big residential area.

“Nah,” Dan said, surprisingly Phil. “I’m walking home.”

Phil wanted to question it but he really couldn’t make himself ask where the boy lived or if it would be too far to walk. It was none of his business and as much as he hadn’t appreciated the fright that Dan had given him, he was thankful for the distraction that he had provided. Phil was still not quite sure what to make of him.

His hands were still stuffed inside of his hoodie pouch and he was slouching with his whole body as he lingered next to the bus stop. He was keeping his eyes down, not looking directly at Phil and that eerie feeling returned.

Dan was odd for a lack of better word but Phil wasn’t sure if he would have remarked so much on it or been inclined to view it negatively if it had not been for his grandmother sprouting that nonsense psychic prediction.

The air felt thick between them and Phil wished that the bus would arrive soon or he had the guts to tell Dan to just leave him to wait alone. At the same time, he had a feeling that the other boy would object and plainly refuse.

He did what he always did when he felt uncomfortable and he didn’t know how to make small talk. He said the first thing on his mind.

“You know, my grandmother was convinced that I was going to get my heart ripped out of my chest or something,” Phil said and added a nervous giggle after the words. It was only natural that those words were the first he could verbalise but he hadn’t actually planned to confess his grandmother’s physic ramblings to this stranger.

He was a little too preoccupied with being mortified at his own words that he didn’t see how the expression of shock that flickered across Dan’s face or how the light from the streetlight caught Dan’s eyes as he looked up in surprise.

Both of them were saved by the bell, or rather the rumbling of the old bus finally making its way down the street. Phil almost jumped in his place, nearly ready to jolt down the road to meet the bus but he knew that was a stupid idea and it would be rude to Dan.

He impatiently waited until the bus stopped and the doors opened slowly. Phil showed his pass to the bus driver who just waved him through and he stepped in, after a quick glance in Dan’s direction. Dan just nodded back in acknowledgement and seemed to adjust his hands in his hoodie pouch.

Phil walked down a couple of empty seats, nearly the whole bus was empty at this time, until he found a good spot near the middle and he scooted over to the window. The tell-tale sound of the bus doors closing sounded like comfort and Phil knew he would soon be back home in his flat.

He looked out of the window, having expected Dan to walk off the moment he got on the bus but he was surprised to still see the boy standing there. He was even more surprised to see the smile he was sending him.

It was wide, intense and almost… maniac.

Phil blinked, trying to determine how it made him feel so unsettled and he remembered the unwelcome images from his imagination. Horrible scenarios with the perpetrators always wearing an eerily similar smile. Phil’s whole body felt like it had been dunked in ice water.

Then Dan lifted his left hand out of his hoodie pouch and Phil zeroed in, not because of the causal movement and the disturbing image of it coupled with _that_ smile but because his hand was smudged with something.

And it looked red.

The bus pulled out and started driving away but Phil’s eyes stayed on Dan for as long as possible and he just kept waving until the bus turned a corner. Phil hadn’t realised that his breathing and expression had become haggard. This could not be real.

He glanced down at his hands, which were trembling and that’s when he noticed the odd discolouration on his upper arm. It had been mostly dark in the forest, so he hadn’t noticed it until now. He twisted his arm inwards, inspecting the odd stain.

It was a handprint, red on red, which made it hard to clearly inspect but it was definitely there. Phil didn’t want to but he couldn’t curb his curiosity and he carefully lifted the fabric to his nose. A distinct smell of iron hit his nose and he wanted to claw off his beloved hoodie.

Dan had grabbed him to stabilise him when he’d nearly run into him. Dan’s hand had been covered in blood, enough to smear on Phil’s hoodie and still mostly cover the hand. Phil’s mind was still trying to refuse it, to ignore it even with all the signs glaring him in the face.

Dan had been odd, but it had clearly been more than that. Suddenly, Phil felt endlessly thankful that his heart was still beating inside of his chest, even if it was running amok and he felt like he might faint. Something like this didn’t happen to normal people. They didn’t run into… whatever the fuck Dan was.

Phil leaned back against the seat and he heard a weird crunch. He adjusted the hood of his hoodie and he heard it again. He almost didn’t want to but he carefully reached behind him and felt around until his fingertips found a slip of paper. It couldn’t have been there when Phil left because he had kept his hood up and it had only come down after his fall. The only explanation was that Dan had slipped it in there when he’d insisted on walking behind him instead of falling properly into step beside him.

The florescent lighting above Phil did not do anything to conceal the bloodstained corners. However, he was much more worried about the letters written in the middle of the paper, with the same horrifying red tint in a messy scrawl.

_See you soon, little red_

**Author's Note:**

> [Reblog on tumblr](https://secretlywritingstories.tumblr.com/post/187925320435/red-and-the-wolf-phan-horror-au)
> 
> Ah! This is very far out of my comfort zone but I think it turned out alright? Do let me know your thoughts in the comments and more importantly your theories? Why was Dan's hand(s) bloody? Why did Phil see his eyes catch the light so weirdly? Could he be the wolf lurking in the bushes? Had he intended to purge a knife into Phil's back when he snuck up on him and decided on the note in the hood instead? Why would he do that? I hope those or similar questions are the ones that you have after this story. I hope you liked this and I would love any feed back. 
> 
> It's quite open-ended and I like where it stops but I also found myself pulled more into the universe than I expected and I might continue it after Phanfic Bingo is over if people show interest, so let me know if you'd like to see more of this universe? I'm trying to post 25 one shots based not the prompts from my bingo card (which can be seen in the tumblr post linked above), so if you like my writing consider checking in on me during the next month's time.


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